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Show 214 BY PATH AND TKAIL. about the ostrich and his habits. This singular bird, when pursued by man or animal, does not bury his head in the sand and suppose that, because the ostrich cannot see its enemy, the enemy cannot see it. The ostrich, when in condition, can out- run and out- dodge almost any thing traveling on two or four feet. This was/ well known to the ancients, for the Patriach Job instances the fleetness of the ostrich in proof of God's kindness: " For, if God hath deprived the ostrich of wisdom, nor gave her understanding, when the time calls for it, she setteth up her wings on high. She scorneth the horse and his rider." When driven to close quarters and forced to defend himself, this extraordinary bird is a fierce fighter, and very few wild animals care to attack him. She does not lay two eggs on the hot desert, hide them with a thin covering of sand and trust to luck or the sun to hatch them. She does not and cannot live for eight or ten months under pressure of great heat and feel no thirst. When compelled by circumstances, the os trich can live a long time without water, perhaps a month or six weeks, but it cannot live, as one of our encyclope dias tells us, a year without water. We always believed our story books and books of travel when they told us that the male ostrich, like our barn- yard rooster, always strutted around, escorted by eight or ten wives. The ostrich has but one mate, and, if the female dies after they have lived together for some time, the male bird is inconsolable and will sometimes pine away and die. The average life of the ostrich is 75 years, but after twenty- five years they bear no feathers of commercial value. The writer of the article in the encyclopedia, which I |
